Janelle Lynch: BPAC Artist-in-Residence on the "Akna" series

Throughout her year as Burchfield artist-in-residence, Janelle Lynch will share her thoughts and impressions with us as we share her journey into the spirit and work of Charles Burchfield.

May 1, 2013

Today, the Santa Barbara Independent reviewed my current exhibition at wall space gallery. This critic refers to the photographs that I made in Mexico after I discovered Burchfield's work.

See the complete "Akna" series here: http://www.janellelynch.net/#/PROJECTS/Akna%20(2006)/1/

"Josephine," from the same series, is in the BPAC's permanent collection.

JARDINIERE: There’s still time to catch the last weekend of Los Jardines de México, Janelle Lynch’s show at wall space gallery (116 E. Yanonali St.). These lush, richly detailed large-format color photographs are deceptively green, as this is not the all-purpose signifier of life but rather something more like Walt Whitman’s leaves of grass, which he called “the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” Some shots were taken in a communal graveyard, while others, from Chiapas, depict dormant tree stumps coated in lichen and ferns. These stump portraits, called “Akna,” are at once moving and otherworldly, deft expressions of a distinctive sensibility behind the lens.

- Janelle Lynch

Janelle Lynch is the 2013 Burchfield resident artist. She has garnered international recognition over the last decade for her large-format photographs of the urban and rural landscape. Widely exhibited, her work is in several public and private collections including the Burchfield Penney, George Eastman House Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Newark Museum, the Fundación Vila Casas, Barcelona, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Salta, Argentina.